Norbrook’s Blog: …. other people have examined Accountability Now, which Jane and Glenn Greenwald launched with great fanfare a few years ago. Ostensibly it was to recruit progressive candidates, but it seemed to end up putting money into Jane and Glenn’s pockets:

Accountability Now collected $113,695 in donations during 2009, as it reported to the FEC, and spent $169,992 that year on nine consultants … including Hamsher ($24,000) and PAC cofounder Glenn Greenwald ($24,000)….

But it’s not Jane’s only PAC. Although most of the scrutiny has been on Accountability Now, when you look at FDL Action PAC’s FEC summary, you see something very interesting:

Fire Dog Lake: $90,063 …. Commonsense Media: $9,920

Hmm… it looks like there’s about $100K of “synergy” going on ….

…. recently Jane had a little blow-up, right after OFA announced what the President had raised (“a staggering $47 million in the past three months”)….

FDL Action’s fundraising wasn’t quite as good:

No wonder she’s pissed! Apparently all the previous donors have been thoroughly shorn, and new sheep aren’t lining up….

Norbrook’s post is brilliantly timely in light of Hamsher and Dan Choi’s arrests today outside the White House (along with another 60 or so people who actually do care about the environment – but you won’t hear much about them). They were staging a laudable (in my humble opinion) demonstration urging President Obama to block a proposed pipeline that would bring oil from Canada’s oil sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries (the Keystone XL pipeline).

Choi tweeted this yesterday:

Okay, so now that he can’t attack the President any more on gay rights issues – without looking even sillier than usual – he’s discovered (true, somewhat belatedly) that he really, really cares about the planet. And if caring about it so much sees him end up in jail, thereby getting him some attention again (when, really, most had forgotten he existed), then that’s a cross he’d, um, have to bear. Mission accomplished, well done Dan.

Hamsher?

Well, you have to admire her purity on this one. She is so passionate and utterly sincere about the blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline she would never, ever have anything to do with anyone who supported it, right?

…..Hillary Clinton’s State Department is holding up the Canadian-American Keystone XL pipeline … unnecessarily inhibiting billions in economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs from being created, the State Department is preventing a much-needed regional stimulus. Click here to tell the State Department to get out of the way of America’s job creators and issue the Keystone XL pipeline building permit!

Onward,

Grover Norquist

President

Americans for Tax Reform

Ah yes, Hamsher’s old buddy, the ‘tax pledge’ guy who makes Rick Perry seems like Mao Tse Tung, the one she collaborated with in opposition to President Obama (and his then Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel).

What? She can partner the lovely Grover on one issue, it doesn’t mean she agrees with him on everything?

Of course! Just like she can team up with President Obama when … oh, never mind.

Any way, those of you who might suggest that this….

…. might have had something to do with Hamsher’s heartfelt concerns about the Keystone XL pipeline – and you can be sure she lies awake at night worrying about it … even though she has a hard-hitting interview with Cenk Uygur the next day (“Jane, you’re, like, soooooooo great!” “I know Cenk – but you are too!”) …. shame on you.

Yes, she has been jailed, and she may well claim she was waterboarded while she was in there, and that will raise her sinking profile, and may even attract a few more dollars to her struggling PAC, but ….. shame on you.

*****

PS

Ooooops, $$$$$ are creating a strain between the Firebaggers.

John Aravosis has started selling these t-shirts on his “I HATE OBAMA SO MUCH I CAN’T EVEN FIND THE WORDS ” blog:

….and that’s made Hamsher’s peeps very, very angry:

Oh noes, the Firebaggers are eating each other alive …. after all, there are only so many $$$$ to go around 😉

A second PS:

Credit must go to Aravosis, having picked only white male models for the t-shirts he’s being trying to sell so far…

….. he chose a ‘non-white’ man for his ‘Proud Firebagger’ offering. Jeez, if he added a woman to the line-up we might even accuse him of being inclusive.

Indeed! Personally, I think these are privileged, self indulgent people, who have nothing to lose if Republicans are in power. After all, for people like Choi and Arvorsis, President Obama has already won many of their battles which are unlikely to be reversed. Right now all they are concerned with is how to spread the hate against the President. They’ve absolutely nothing to loose!

I can’t. The comments are just beyond stupid and so is the article. Its not even challenging anymore to debate these guys. They get the simplest things wrong or just make shit up. Most of the time they just copy each other. Fortunately, he’s just one person at that blog. Most of the time its pretty good.

I also like that blog, and especially articles by Jason and Sarah. That article really rubbed me the wrong way. I was disappointed that the moderators allowed it without comment. I went by and left a comment (under nk007). I just hope that politicususa is not joining the PL.

I saw your posts there:) I wasn’t going to post a comment tonight, but I just couldn’t keep my big mouth shut…I like the site as well, but this particular post was totally out of context. I don’t believe that we need to agree with every single thing the man does, but I DO believe that he always, always has the people’s best interests at heart when he does ANYTHING! The article rubbed me the wrong way too, but unless we speak up and point out the wrongs, then we’re condoning that bad behavior, and I won’t do it. Glad you left a comment there…mine should piss someone off.

Since Norquist feels so strongly about the pipeline, shouldn’t he be in jail tonight along with Hamsher and Choi? Oh, right. He doesn’t have to do anything except give them their marching orders to carry out! Tools!!!

You’re misunderstanding. Norquist is for the pipeline. Jane and Choi and the rest are protesting against it. What Chips was pointing out is that Jane has partnered with Norquist in the past because Jane is incredibly shortsighted, reactionary and a strategic dunce.

When I have seen Jane on some show I can’t help but think of how much she reminds me of that woman that is the online Russian dentist/lawyer that was pushing the Birtherism. Was it Orly Tate? They look similar and sound similar.

This is absolutely a very worthy project to protest and it’s a shame that it’s being tainted by the attention whores.

I listened to an interview with Bill McKibben who is the actual leader of this worthy effort. He made a point of brining up that the media keeps asking him if Obama decides to let the pipeline go through (which in my opinion would be a very poor decision) would Bill McKibben then speak out against Obama and “not vote for him”. He said, that wasn’t what this was about, this wasn’t about tearing the president down but rather letting him know that there is an organized and sincere effort to keep this dangerous and harmful project from going through our country. There are parts of the pipeline that are actually planned to go right over the largest aquifer in the U.S. and tar sands oil is the most dangerous, corrosive and harmful around. It actually has to be heated to get it to move through the pipeline! It’s a bad, bad thing and big, big money is behind it.

The point I’m trying to make is that it is a very worthy protest that Jane and Choi are simply inserting themselves into and trying to capitalize on.

“If Barack Obama mans up, says no to this thing, it will send a surge of electricity through all of the people that voted for him three years ago. It will be the reminder of why we were so enamored of this guy in 2008,” McKibben said.

Which I agree with…….other than the “mans up” part I suppose. Of course I am still enamored of him but I must admit I will be very shocked and saddened if the president signs this permit, it has disaster written all over it.

McKibben is in this fight for all the right reasons and Hamsher and Choi are NOT.

The “man up” part is why I quoted it. I’m tired of these types of attacks on the President. Do I think the pipeline should be built – hell no. But the environmentalists lost the frame war fight for this a long time ago. Sure the lobbyists have millions of dollars – but you have virtually every Republican claiming man-made global warming is a huge lie and liberal conspiracy being given equal billing on mainstream news shows, than you have the energy security/independence issue – the reason President Obama often uses to sell green energy initiatives, along with it creating a ton of jobs.

How can the President call for a jobs bill, and an infrastructure bank in September – and turn this down? He’s painted into a corner here.

Turning this down might be a surge of electricity through these protesters, but like anything else they’ll just move on to their next cause of the moment, threatening their vote again. OTOH, if Pres. Obama blocks this – it will be a huge attack point from the Right as they’d claim to the effect – he’d be “siding with fringe enviro nuts” over tens of thousands of jobs and energy security.

To me the best case scenario is that this is something the GOP really wants, so he can horse trade with it to get something he really wants.

President Obama could maybe delay it by saying he wants it as part of a larger energy bill. Because if he agrees to this there is less reason for the GOP to come to the table on an extensive energy bill. It will be like what happened on the border – give the GOP what they want to “secure the border” and now they couldn’t give a damn about moving on a larger immigration bill.

This isn’t something that needs to be bargained for, it doesn’t need to be tied to anything else as it’s not something that Obama has to try to get through Congress and doesn’t need to seek their approval. This should have nothing to do with Republican brinksmanship because technically they hold no power whatsoever over this decision.

The had no power over the Bush Tax Cuts either and they were used. The best chance the President has to block this is to make it part of a larger energy bill and then get big green energy investment and a big infrastructure bank as a trade off.

I think we’ll have to just agree to disagree on this. Bill McKibben is the one of the best environmental journalists working in the world today, he is not a part of the “professional left” who will move on to the next gripe when this is settled. I understand that many people take criticism of the president as an attack and I just don’t see it that way in all instances. I think people forget that Obama himself has said that he welcomes it, he values it, but I would assume that he values criticism that’s based in reality and that’s why Hamsher, Choi etc, fall flat for me. I just don’t lump all criticism of the president into one group and call it an attack, I think it’s useful to differentiate. As is the case with McKibbens, the main thrust of his complete comment was that this wasn’t about griping about the president or mounting some sort of campaign against him, it’s about getting him to do the right thing against a massive amount of pressure from very big money. If he used some words that weren’t entirely appropriate I am not going to discount all that he said because of it.

As far as this being an attack point from the right wing if he does not sign the permit, that absolutely cannot be a factor in his decision to do the right thing or not, then it would be only based in politics and that’s not what he says he wants to do. The suggestion that this should be used as some sort of bargaining chip makes me believe that possibly you aren’t fully aware of how unbelievably harmful this would be. That is not from “fringe enviro nuts” but from our own NASA scientists who basically call this a “game over” sort of scenario.

I’m definitely not trying to get on your bad side here or to pick any sort of fight so I will just say we will have to be ok with disagreeing with each other on this particular matter.

Exactly! I am sick and tired of people who think that politics is all about ideological purity and getting everything you want. If that were the case this country would never have been founded. If the revered founders could compromise over such an evil institution as slavery in order to establish the United States, how come the President can’t compromise on this in order to pass a jobs bill, and especially jobs focused on rebuilding our infrastructure? IMO, the priority now is jobs. Once people are working, then we can mount a sustained campaign for environmental protection.

I just personally believe that is a false choice. This is far too important and too damaging to let it be “tied” to something else. Yes, jobs are number #1 priority right now but since when have we been a country that can only deal with one priority at a time. This is a long term issue and we have allowed republicans to turn our politics into a brinksmanship game and I don’t believe this should be a part of it.

I’m not one of the people who has “demanded” that the president draws a line in the sand over every issue but this project should not be thought of as something as an “either/or” with jobs, it’s just not reality. This is not about purity, this is about our future and the quality of it and it shouldn’t not be bound to the immediate need for jobs which of course Obama will have a plan for and the republicans will not.

I’m going to back away now because I have found that when I dissent even a little bit here It often doesn’t end well for me.

I agree with you that it is important! But sometimes in life you have to choose between two important things. I however reject your characterization of my choice as ” a false choice” given the nature of our current political environment, with insane Republicans controlling one House of Congress, and millions of people out of work, and crying out for relief. If you can point to me a way to get these two important priorities done then I am with you 100%.

I personally have no problem with your dissent, because you at least voice your dissent without vitriol and vicious hatred of the President. For me, as a descendent of enslaved Africans, who knows that this country was founded on compromises, written by our revered founders, in our revered Constitution, that allowed a slave to be counted as three fifth of a person, sanctioned the sale of human beings as commodity and allowed slave owners to hunt down run away salves across state lines, I am just not that impressed with people who revere the founders and then attack President Obama for trying to enter into less odious compromises in order to get important things done. Please don’t get me wrong. I wish we didn’t have to compromise with these insane teabagger-Republicans. We probably wouldn’t have had to deal with these Republican crazies had it not been for the PL and the “holier than thou progressives” who urged people not to vote, in the 2010 congressional elections, so as to punish President Obama and the Democrats for not being “pure” progressives. This is clearly the case where the actions of the Hamshers and the Ed Shultz, are making all of us reap what they sowed!

Well let me make one thing perfectly clear, I love this president. I’ve stood up for him even when I disagreed and I believe with all my heart that he wants his supporters to dissent sometimes, to raise their voices and tell him what they think and I think that’s ok. I surely don’t believe any disagreement I have with him or a decision he makes will ever make me change my feelings for the amazing president and human being that I believe him to be.

I think I must not have made it clear in my opening statement. I’m very open to compromise but this is not something that goes through Congress, this is a permit that goes directly to his desk and there is no “need” to compromise on anything because they don’t get any input on this decision, it is his alone. This isn’t about being pure, it isn’t some litmus test and this isn’t about punishment. For all the things that he has had to and will have to compromise and horse trade on this is one that he can do all on his own without having to go through any sort of spectacle with Congress.

The “false choice” is that not building the pipeline will mean that oil sands won’t be exploited by Canada. Since that’s already happening, the question then becomes where does that oil go, and how is it transported? Hence the pipeline project. Stopping the oil pipeline might in the short term reduce the amount of oil sand exploitation, but it’s a short-term patch.

Absolutely no need to “horse trade” as Congress has no jurisdiction over this decision. It is a permit that the President can sign or not and there is nothing that can be “held hostage” by republicans.

For a conspiracy theory – this pipeline is why gas prices are being kept so high. The barrel is down to less than $90 and prices are still sky high, because tar sand extraction only makes economic sense when gas prices are so high.

Green/renewable energy gets a push from high gas prices, but so does these tar sand folks.

Glad to read the respectful debate between chiara’s passionate explanation and the others. I am learning more and more about here. I am concerned about the environmental affect this may have since we have had so much damage done in the last two years with oil spills in LA and MI lately. This is something that would affect the environment and people not just under this presidency but future ones who might me more lax in regulating this project.

It’s astounding to me that some people who claim to be progressive and/or pragmatic, and claim to have voted for President Obama in ’08, always seem to find that “one issue” that he’s not working hard enough on, or that he’d better not do, or whatever, and they just may not vote for him in ’12.

When the hell are people going to start looking at the big picture? Do you have any idea what the alternative in ’12 is going to do to this country? To our ideals? Fight for what you believe in, but don’t give up on the best President of any of our lifetimes because on day whatever he didn’t do exactly whatever you have in your mind as “most important agenda item for me.”

They’ve all been written off a long time ago. I mean it’s comical to see Hamsher and Choi at this protest. Choi has written President Obama off on DADT, DOMA and now this issue. Hamsher has written him off on HCR reform in the very least. Now they’re back at it again.

Having Choi and Jane there is a huge discredit to what Mr. McKibben is trying to do. They are vile opportunists and professional President Obama haters – they bring their stench to the protest.

Just saw CNN’s Don Lemon interview Goldie Taylor of thegrio.com, and she more or less took down Rep. Maxine Waters for her recent criticisms of President Obama that he’s not doing enough for the African American community. I found the article Ms. Taylor posted on her website, and it’s packed with thoughts and feelings that some of us here share:

Just watched the ho-hum interview of the President on CBS Sunday Morning. The questioner and producer and whoever approved the clips they used tried to make it a hit piece. Mild negatives; soft, leading questions, to try to put the President down and go with the meme du jour. However, the editing process missed a spot. Right in the middle of one of the townhalls during the bus tour, a real live American from the Midwest stood up to address the leader of our country, and started his question with something like, “I’m not disappointed in you, Mr. President, no matter what Michelle Bachmann is saying.”

That was my takeaway. Love the people in the heartland! Love our President!

Late arrival here. Aster reading through this thread, I now understand why I received an email communication from FDL the day before yesterday to please become a member and join in their good works.

And kefauver, I’m sure you know this yourself about Social Security — I’ve been hearing about the imminent depletion of Social Security funds since I was in my early thirties and that was fifty years ago.